RBC MUSIC · DRUM BEAT

The drum beat in Ночь Рождества

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 7, 9 and 42, and 15 more places -- 21.8% of every bar the kit plays. This one moves around more than most: the beat is where to start, not the whole job.

TEMPO
90 BPM
TIME
3/4
BARS
130
LENGTH
4:20
DIFFICULTY
38/100

The beat, written out

LOOP · 90 BPM
НОЧЬ РОЖДЕСТВА · BAR 7

It is played on crash, ride, snare and kick, counted in sixteenth notes. On its own it scores 32 out of 100 -- a fair first song -- and the thing that decides that is how often it moves around the kit.

The whole song is 38 out of 100, so the beat is most of what the song asks for. Get it clean and the rest follows.

How to get it under your hands

The room opens this beat on its simplest reduction, at 68 BPM, and adds the notes back a rung at a time -- 3 of them. Nothing is a matter of opinion: each rung has a tempo to reach and a gate to pass before the next one.

  1. Skeleton. Only the notes that land on a beat. The point is to feel where this bar stands.
  2. Kick and snare, whole. The feet and the snare exactly as written, ride pulled back to quarter notes. This is the part to know by heart.
  3. As written. Open hi-hat, ghost notes, accents and the crash where they belong.

Tempo goes 68, 79 and 90 BPM, and the gate at each one is 8 loops in a row with no wrong note and no wobble in the time.

PRACTISE THIS BEAT →

Questions

What drum beat does Ночь Рождества use?

A one-bar groove on crash, ride, snare and kick, in 3/4 at 90 BPM, counted in sixteenth notes. It is written out above, and it covers 21.8% of the bars the kit plays.

Where does the beat come in?

Bars 7, 9, 42 and 58, and 14 more places. The time is kept on the silence to start with, and it changes 16 times over the song.

Is the beat in Ночь Рождества hard?

32 out of 100 on its own -- a fair first song. The song as a whole is 38 out of 100 -- a fair first song -- with how often it moves around the kit the part that decides it.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 130 BARS ANALYSED